2,862 research outputs found
Altimetry, gravimetry, GPS and viscoelastic modeling data for the joint inversion for glacial isostatic adjustment in Antarctica (ESA STSE Project REGINA)
The poorly known correction for the ongoing deformation of the solid Earth caused by glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) is a major uncertainty in determining the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet from measurements of satellite gravimetry and to a lesser extent satellite altimetry. In the past decade, much progress has been made in consistently modeling ice sheet and solid Earth interactions; however, forward-modeling solutions of GIA in Antarctica remain uncertain due to the sparsity of constraints on the ice sheet evolution, as well as the Earth's rheological properties. An alternative approach towards estimating GIA is the joint inversion of multiple satellite data – namely, satellite gravimetry, satellite altimetry and GPS, which reflect, with different sensitivities, trends in recent glacial changes and GIA. Crucial to the success of this approach is the accuracy of the space-geodetic data sets. Here, we present reprocessed rates of surface-ice elevation change (Envisat/Ice, Cloud,and land Elevation Satellite, ICESat; 2003–2009), gravity field change (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, GRACE; 2003–2009) and bedrock uplift (GPS; 1995–2013). The data analysis is complemented by the forward modeling of viscoelastic response functions to disc load forcing, allowing us to relate GIA-induced surface displacements with gravity changes for different rheological parameters of the solid Earth. The data and modeling results presented here are available in the PANGAEA database (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.875745). The data sets are the input streams for the joint inversion estimate of present-day ice-mass change and GIA, focusing on Antarctica. However, the methods, code and data provided in this paper can be used to solve other problems, such as volume balances of the Antarctic ice sheet, or can be applied to other geographical regions in the case of the viscoelastic response functions. This paper presents the first of two contributions summarizing the work carried out within a European Space Agency funded study: Regional glacial isostatic adjustment and CryoSat elevation rate corrections in Antarctica (REGINA)
Grid-Enabled Non-Invasive Blood Glucose Measurement
Abstract. Earth and life sciences are at the forefront to successfully include computational simulations and modeling. Medical applications are often mentioned as the killer applications for the Grid. The complex methodology and models of Traditional Chinese Medicine offer different approaches to diagnose and treat a persons health condition than typical Western medicine. A possibility to make this often hidden knowledge ex-plicit and available to a broader audience will result in mutual synergies for Western and Chinese medicine as well as improved patient care. This paper proposes the design and implementation of a method to accurately estimate blood glucose values using a novel non-invasive method based on electro-transformation measures in human body meridians. The frame-work used for this scientific computing collaboration, namely the China-Austria Data Grid (CADGrid) framework, provides an Intelligence Base offering commonly used models and algorithms as Web/Grid-Services. The controlled execution of the Non-Invasive Blood Glucose Measure-ment Service and the management of scientific data that arise from model execution can be seen as the first application on top of the CADGrid
Time-Distance Imaging of Solar Far-Side Active Regions
It is of great importance to monitor large solar active regions in the
far-side of the Sun for space weather forecast, in particular, to predict their
appearance before they rotate into our view from the solar east limb. Local
helioseismology techniques, including helioseismic holography and
time-distance, have successfully imaged solar far-side active regions. In this
Letter, we further explore the possibility of imaging and improving the image
quality of solar far-side active regions by use of time-distance
helioseismology. In addition to the previously used scheme with four acoustic
signal skips, a five-skip scheme is also included in this newly developed
technique. The combination of both four- and five-skip far-side images
significantly enhances the signal-to-noise ratio in the far-side images, and
reduces spurious signals. The accuracy of the far-side active region imaging is
also assessed using one whole year solar observation.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted by ApJ Letter
The Carnegie Astrometric Planet Search Program
We are undertaking an astrometric search for gas giant planets and brown
dwarfs orbiting nearby low mass dwarf stars with the 2.5-m du Pont telescope at
the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. We have built two specialized
astrometric cameras, the Carnegie Astrometric Planet Search Cameras (CAPSCam-S
and CAPSCam-N), using two Teledyne Hawaii-2RG HyViSI arrays, with the cameras'
design having been optimized for high accuracy astrometry of M dwarf stars. We
describe two independent CAPSCam data reduction approaches and present a
detailed analysis of the observations to date of one of our target stars, NLTT
48256. Observations of NLTT 48256 taken since July 2007 with CAPSCam-S imply
that astrometric accuracies of around 0.3 milliarcsec per hour are achievable,
sufficient to detect a Jupiter-mass companion orbiting 1 AU from a late M dwarf
10 pc away with a signal-to-noise ratio of about 4. We plan to follow about 100
nearby (primarily within about 10 pc) low mass stars, principally late M, L,
and T dwarfs, for 10 years or more, in order to detect very low mass companions
with orbital periods long enough to permit the existence of habitable,
Earth-like planets on shorter-period orbits. These stars are generally too
faint and red to be included in ground-based Doppler planet surveys, which are
often optimized for FGK dwarfs. The smaller masses of late M dwarfs also yield
correspondingly larger astrometric signals for a given mass planet. Our search
will help to determine whether gas giant planets form primarily by core
accretion or by disk instability around late M dwarf stars.Comment: 48 pages, 9 figures. in press, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacifi
Direct exoplanet detection and characterization using the ANDROMEDA method: Performance on VLT/NaCo data
Context. The direct detection of exoplanets with high-contrast imaging
requires advanced data processing methods to disentangle potential planetary
signals from bright quasi-static speckles. Among them, angular differential
imaging (ADI) permits potential planetary signals with a known rotation rate to
be separated from instrumental speckles that are either statics or slowly
variable. The method presented in this paper, called ANDROMEDA for ANgular
Differential OptiMal Exoplanet Detection Algorithm is based on a maximum
likelihood approach to ADI and is used to estimate the position and the flux of
any point source present in the field of view. Aims. In order to optimize and
experimentally validate this previously proposed method, we applied ANDROMEDA
to real VLT/NaCo data. In addition to its pure detection capability, we
investigated the possibility of defining simple and efficient criteria for
automatic point source extraction able to support the processing of large
surveys. Methods. To assess the performance of the method, we applied ANDROMEDA
on VLT/NaCo data of TYC-8979-1683-1 which is surrounded by numerous bright
stars and on which we added synthetic planets of known position and flux in the
field. In order to accommodate the real data properties, it was necessary to
develop additional pre-processing and post-processing steps to the initially
proposed algorithm. We then investigated its skill in the challenging case of a
well-known target, Pictoris, whose companion is close to the detection
limit and we compared our results to those obtained by another method based on
principal component analysis (PCA). Results. Application on VLT/NaCo data
demonstrates the ability of ANDROMEDA to automatically detect and characterize
point sources present in the image field. We end up with a robust method
bringing consistent results with a sensitivity similar to the recently
published algorithms, with only two parameters to be fine tuned. Moreover, the
companion flux estimates are not biased by the algorithm parameters and do not
require a posteriori corrections. Conclusions. ANDROMEDA is an attractive
alternative to current standard image processing methods that can be readily
applied to on-sky data
Convolutional Radio Modulation Recognition Networks
We study the adaptation of convolutional neural networks to the complex
temporal radio signal domain. We compare the efficacy of radio modulation
classification using naively learned features against using expert features
which are widely used in the field today and we show significant performance
improvements. We show that blind temporal learning on large and densely encoded
time series using deep convolutional neural networks is viable and a strong
candidate approach for this task especially at low signal to noise ratio
Satellite Communications [Editorial]
YesWe are delighted to bring to you this special issue on satellite
communications, which we have prepared as part of the
spreading of excellence remit of the satellite communications
network of excellence (SatNEx). The SatNEx project,
which began in 2004, is funded for five years under the European
Union¿s Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) Information
Society Technologies (IST) Thematic Area. Led by the
German Aerospace Center, SatNEx brings together a network
of 24 partners, distributed throughout Europe, with membership
drawn from ten countries.
The philosophy underlying the SatNEx approach revolves
around the selection of focused actions under Joint
Programmes of Activities, which are carried out collectively
by the partners and include research, integration, and dissemination
activities. Training represents an important part
of the SatNEx remit and is supported through a number of
initiatives including the hosting of internship projects and an
annual summer school.
The call for papers resulted in a high number of submissions,
from which we have been able to select 12 excellent
papers dealing with the different aspects of satellite communications
and navigation.European Unio
Functional Organization of Visual Cortex in the Owl Monkey
In this study, we compared the organization of orientation preference in visual areas V1, V2, and V3. Within these visual areas, we also
quantified the relationship between orientation preference and cytochrome oxidase (CO) staining patterns. V1 maps of orientation
preference contained both pinwheels and linear zones. The location of CO blobs did not relate in a systematic way to maps of orientation;
although, as in other primates, there were approximately twice as many pinwheels as CO blobs. V2 contained bands of high and low
orientation selectivity. The bands of high orientation selectivity were organized into pinwheels and linear zones, but iso-orientation
domains were twice as large as those in V1. Quantitative comparisons between bands containing high or low orientation selectivity and
CO dark and light bands suggested that at least four functional compartments exist in V2, CO dense bands with either high or low
orientation selectivity, and CO light bands with either high or low selectivity. We also demonstrated that two functional compartments
exist in V3, with zones of high orientation selectivity corresponding to CO dense areas and zones of low orientation selectivity corresponding
to CO pale areas. Together with previous findings, these results suggest that the modular organization of V1 is similar across
primates and indeed across most mammals. V2 organization in owl monkeys also appears similar to that of other simians but different
from that of prosimians and other mammals. Finally, V3 of owl monkeys shows a compartmental organization for orientation selectivity
that remains to be demonstrated in other primates
Five new real-time detections of Fast Radio Bursts with UTMOST
We detail a new fast radio burst (FRB) survey with the Molonglo Radio
Telescope, in which six FRBs were detected between June 2017 and December 2018.
By using a real-time FRB detection system, we captured raw voltages for five of
the six events, which allowed for coherent dedispersion and very high time
resolution (10.24 s) studies of the bursts. Five of the FRBs show temporal
broadening consistent with interstellar and/or intergalactic scattering, with
scattering timescales ranging from 0.16 to 29.1 ms. One burst, FRB181017, shows
remarkable temporal structure, with 3 peaks each separated by 1 ms. We searched
for phase-coherence between the leading and trailing peaks and found none,
ruling out lensing scenarios. Based on this survey, we calculate an all-sky
rate at 843 MHz of events sky day to a fluence
limit of 8 Jy-ms: a factor of 7 below the rates estimated from the Parkes and
ASKAP telescopes at 1.4 GHz assuming the ASKAP-derived spectral index
(). Our results suggest that FRB
spectra may turn over below 1 GHz. Optical, radio and X-ray followup has been
made for most of the reported bursts, with no associated transients found. No
repeat bursts were found in the survey.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRA
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